Trial continues for man accused of killing off-duty Oakdale officer

Deena Stipetich doesn’t remember hearing the gunshots.

But she does remember seeing her husband stand over her 23-year-old son lying in the street, begging him to live.

“‘Stay with me, Chuckie. Stay with me,’” he told him.

She doesn’t remember hearing her son respond.

But she does remember seeing bubbles coming out of his mouth.

She doesn’t remember talking to detectives at the hospital.

But she does remember that when she learned her son, an off-duty, part-time Oakdale police officer, had been killed as she arrived at Allegheny General, she opened the car door and wanted to run away.

Stipetich was one of the last witnesses called by the prosecution on Wednesday in the homicide trial of Kevin McSwiggen, 42, of Greenfield.

He is accused of killing Charles “Chuckie” Stipetich the night of July 3, 2022, after a road rage incident in Blawnox.

Deputy District Attorney Lisa Carey rested her case late Wednesday, and the defense is expected to present testimony on Thursday.

McSwiggen told Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Jill E. Rangos that he will take the stand.

In his opening statement, McSwiggen’s attorney, Casey White, said his client shot Charles Stipetich in self-defense.

According to investigators, Stipetich had just left Sharpsburg, where he had been fishing with his younger brother, Branden, that night when he encountered McSwiggen.

After he left, Stipetich drove north on Route 28. Dashcam video taken from McSwiggen’s truck showed Stipetich merge into the right lane in front of him. Believing Stipetich had cut him off, McSwiggen began following him.

As he did, according to audio taken from the video, McSwiggen could be heard talking out loud, repeating several expletives, and saying, “I ought to cut you.”

A bit later, he said, “Come on jackass.”

Police said McSwiggen, who had a gun and a hunting knife on a belt holster, followed Stipetich for 1.2 miles and a total of 3 minutes and 21 seconds, before pulling behind him in front of Stipetich’s home on Fountain Street in Blawnox.

As McSwiggen got out of his truck, the video showed him swearing at Stipetich and told him to learn how to drive.

Stipetich repeatedly told the man to leave, and his father, who Stipetich had called on his drive home to report he was being followed, came out of their house.

The men can be heard shouting at each other, and then Charles Stipetich Sr. told McSwiggen that his son was a cop.

McSwiggen pulled out his gun — he was licensed to carry — and fired one shot, hitting the younger Stipetich in the lower abdomen. As he trained the weapon on the man’s father, Stipetich fired back, striking McSwiggen in the armpit area.

Police officers responding to the scene found McSwiggen in his truck.

First responders took Stipetich to the hospital where he died upon arrival.

During her testimony, Deena Stipetich told the jury that her son had spent four years in the U.S. Marine Corps, serving in Japan and Norway, before returning home in October 2021.

He had joined the Oakdale Police Department just a few weeks before he was killed.